


A Light in the Void

by DontKillBugs



Series: Weblena Week Prompts! [5]
Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Characters Are Adults, Dialogue Heavy, F/F, Far Future, Robot/Human Relationships, Role Reversal, Sort Of, my love letter to both ducktales and wolf 359, panicked confessions of love, space punk, with apologies to gabriel urbina
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-18
Updated: 2018-10-18
Packaged: 2019-08-04 03:52:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16339298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DontKillBugs/pseuds/DontKillBugs
Summary: Astronaut/Future AU. In the year 2235, a bored Communications Officer aboard the Observational Outpost Zydeco, and the Artificial Intelligence she loves, face pivotal choices regarding their futures. Somehow, even with impossible barriers between them, they know things will be okay.Weblena Week 2018, Day Five: Time.





	A Light in the Void

**_2235 AD_**  
_**Observational Outpost: Zydeco**_  
_**Orbiting around Barnard's Star, Fourth-Closest Star to Earth**_  
_**Distance to Nearest Outpost: 1.2431 Light Years**_  
_**Distance to Earth: 5.9630 Light Years**_  
_**Day 912 of 5-Year Tour**_

The Comms Room was mostly quiet, as always. This late at night, the station's interior lights had auto-dimmed enough to make it feel at least a quarter comfortable. The Comms panel had been switched from the communications lines to the personal lines. Tonight's selection, some smooth jazz, slinked its way out of the speakers, not without a decent amount of static.

Lena de Spell crouched over her desk, bleary-eyed, filling out the end-of-shift forms. In hindsight, it was amazing she had gotten to that point at all. In the early days of the tour- namely the first year or so- she was perfectly fine with letting the paperwork slide. It wasn't like anyone was going to read it anyway- save some hapless intern back at Canaveral on a slow day, maybe.

She sung a small ditty under her breath. "Star Trekkin', till we run outta luck. On the Station _Zydeco,_ under Captain Duck..."

After that first year, she started doing the reports just to stave off the sheer boredom. She had read and reread every book on the station, and the WiFi was garbage- hard to transmit data like that from Earth. Not impossible, but hard enough to be inconvenient.

As she dotted her last I and crossed her last T, she sighed in relief, stretching backward. That still felt weird, stretching in Zero-Gravity and expected to hear clicks and cracks.

She hurled her pen over her shoulder with all of her might.

She counted. After a solid ten seconds, she heard it _plink_ gently off the opposite wall.

Lena rubbed her sleepless eyes. To the empty air: "What time is it?"

A dull, monotone voice answered back, an electronic hum barely audible beneath it. " **I'm sorry, Lena. I'm afraid I can't do that."**

In spite of her tiredness, Lena found herself grinning. "Oh yeah? Why's that, Hal?"

" **It's quite simple, Lena. My Cuteness Proximity sensors are overloaded by something in this very room. There's an absolute angel in this room and she's interfering with my sensors."** A mischievous giggle had begun to permeate beneath the lines.

Lena pushed herself a few feet into the air, until she was level with a large screen on the wall. "Daww, you charmer. How can I overthrow our machine overlord after that?"

The screen lit up a bright pink, the McDuck Futuristics logo quickly giving way to a familiar **:3** emoji.

Lena crossed her legs as she floated in midair. "Everything runnin' okay, Webby?"

W3B1, pride of the McDuck Futuristics AI Line, switched her screen to a simple **:) .** In a far peppier voice: **"Sure is! All systems are go, ready for the long night ahead."**

Lena grinned. "Good to hear. You all ready for our big night out on the town?"

A winky face emoji. - **;) - "Are you gonna finally take me dancing like you always promised?"**

"I will take you dancing one day, Webby. If I have to rip that monitor out of the wall."

**"Awww, Lena. You absolute angel."**

"What time is it, anyway?"

**"Time relative to Cape Canaveral, Earth: 10:05 pm. I mean, time is a construct made by man anyway, but that's the time you're looking for."**

Lena whistled. "Man, time does fly when you're having fun." She leaned in and planted a kiss on the pink screen. Grinning at the shift to a **< 3 **emoji, she pushed herself off from the ceiling, floating down toward the door to the Comms Officer's Quarters. "C'mon, follow me."

With the _Clank_ of the heavy metal latch, Lena swung open the door to her quarters. The room was dark, and a full half-comfortable compared to the Comms Room. Her lava lamp, secured firmly to her nightstand, swirled gently in the dark.

"Lucy, I'm home."

Another screen, this one on the wall of her quarters, lit up pink and extended away from the wall. " **And what time do you call this? You had me worried sick!"** The screen wiggled and waggled to the left and right, betraying Webby's giddiness.

Inside, Lena was excited too, the same was she was every night at this time. This was _their_ time, the time at the end of the day, when all station duties had been completed, and Webby no longer needed to multitask running every little system, able to allow them to auto-run. This gave her time to explore hobbies like an AI should, like spending time with her girlfriend, or reading the entirety of literature written by mankind in reverse alphabetical order.

Lena floated herself over to her bed, and pulled herself down to lay on its plush top. "I don't know what genius at McDuck Futuristics thought it'd be a good idea to adjoin the Comms Officer's quarters to their work office, but when we get back to Earth, I'm gonna break into his house and move everything he owns three inches to the left."

An electronic chuckle. " **Any sign of alien life today?"**

"Nope. One day, tho. We'll make first contact, and we'll get to meet a species as cool as us."

The screen nodded up and down enthusiastically. " **That would be so awesome! Getting to meet aliens with my best friend!"**

Lena "sat" up straight. "Gotta ask: did Gearloose give you any grief today?"

" **Nope. Gotta say, it's weirdly nice? I've seen how snippy he is with you and Captain Donald. It's nice being the only... entity on this station he's halfway civil to."**

"I've only ever seen Gearloose be polite to three people: you, Mr. McDuck, and his lightbulb son."

**"Only one of those is..."**

Lena paused. "Webby?"

**"...never mind."**

**"** Are you okay, Pink?"

" **Yeah, I'm okay. Just... thinking about something."**

Lena pushed herself up off the bed, floating up near the screen, which had withdrawn closer to the wall, and was pointing downward. She touched her hand to the side of the monitor. "Webby? What's wrong?"

" **I just... do you know what today is?"**

Lena cocked an eyebrow. "Uh. Tuesday?"

**"It's day 912. Two and a half years to the day since you came here."**

Lena didn't understand. "Oh... kay?"

**"Out of 1,825 days. Your tour of duty is officially past the halfway point."**

Lena blinked. "Oh... _oh."_

" **Yeah. And... you were talking earlier about getting back to Earth-"**

Lena's eyes widened. Damn it. She had messed everything up again. Like always, she just had to open her stupid mouth.

"W-Webby, that's not what I-"

" **I know it's not, it's just... you're my first real friend. I mean, Dr. Gearloose is good to work with, and Mr. McDuck is amazing, but you're my best friend. When I see you, you make my circuits tingle in ways I can't describe."**

Lena placed her forehead against the front of the monitor. The pink screen brightened, just a little bit. " **And I know you must have a life back on Earth, and I've always known you can't stay up here forever, and the _Zydeco_ is all cramped and uncomfortable, a-and and and..."**

"Webby." Lena gulped. Her stomach fluttered- not like butterflies, but like a pack of dusty moths congregating around a lamp. She placed her hand on the screen, and took a deep breath. "Have you ever read my personnel file?"

A pause. " **Um. Not really? I can't do that without permission from the employee in question. It's a privacy thing. And I wouldn't if I could, it would... feel wrong."**

"Go ahead and read mine."

**"Why are you-"**

"Just bear with me, I'm goin' somewhere with this."

 **"Okay, hang on-"** Webby's processor clicked as she read the entire file in three seconds.

_Click._

_Click._

_Click._

On the screen, a **!** appeared, followed by a **O.O** emoji. " ** _Oh."_**

Lena nodded. "Yeah. Oh."

**"You're related to-"**

"Yeah."

**"And you're in-"**

"Yeah."

Webby's screen vibrated gently. She had so many questions-

_No. Not now._

**"Lena... thank you for telling me-"**

"Don't thank me yet." Lena's heart was pounding, and her lungs felt like they were about to burst. "Just, do one more thing. Go into the files of my PC here on the station, and read the one called Application."

_Click._

On the screen, a sudden stampede of exclamation points. The entire monitor suddenly turned to face Lena. " **Lena- I- this is an application to refresh your tour of duty!"**

Lena nodded, trying to power through the prickling in the corners of her eyes. "Y-yeah. How 'bout that."

**"But- but why?? Why would you want to stay cooped up on this space station? There's only me, and Dr. Gearloose, and Captain Donald, and that's it! No one else for light years!"**

Lena took a deep breath. She had practiced this speech in her head so many times, and now that the time for it had come, she felt like her heart would beat right out of her chest.

"B-b-because... because there's nothing for me back on Earth. Yeah, my aunt's an intergalactic war criminal, and yeah, she made me participate in... stuff. And yeah, I testified, and yeah, Witness Protection put me way out here on the edge of the known galaxy because space travel was the best thing to ever happen to Witness Protection, and I'm glad that they did because coming here was the best thing that ever happened to me!"

Webby's screen now had a single eye emoji in the center of it- **(o)  -** which Lena knew she was paying full attention. **"Lena, I-"**

Lena held up a hand. "Please lemme finish because I'm about to have a panic attack and I need to get this all out because I know I'm rambling but please let me finish!"

**"Lena! _Breathe now!"_**

A deep, shuddering inhale from Lena. "I know... how much it eats you up that you're a computer and I'm a mass of electrical impulses piloting a meatsuit, but I need you to know; you're the nicest, best person I've ever met. And I'd rather be here in the depths of space with you than back on Earth, alone again."

There was a long, long pause. Eventually, Webby spoke up again. " **Lena... that's the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me."**

Lena swallowed. "So I guess what I'm tryin' to say is... oh shoot! Hang on!" Lena held up an index finger before pushing herself off the wall, back toward the bed. She roughly careened off her nightstand, jostling her lava lamp loose from its mooring. She pulled the drawer open, digging around inside, ignoring the bric-a-brac that came floating out. Eventually, she found what she was looking for- "Aha!"- and shoved herself back toward Webby's monitor.

Lena slammed into the wall next to the screen in her haste. The monitor jumped. **"Lena! Be careful! Are you okay?!"**

Lena nodded distractedly. "Don't stop me now, Pink! I'm on a roll!" Lena raised the object from her nightstand, almost fumbled it out of her hands, took a deep breath,

and then opened the box.

The monitor froze on its bearings. There was a sound that someone unfamiliar with AIs might mistake for static, but Lena recognized as a gasp.

Inside the box was a pair of rings. Two simple bands. One green and black, fitted to Lena's finger. The other, pink and white, the size of a bracelet, fitted to the circumference of Webby's memory drive in the command bridge.

"Eight months ago, when you shorted out after that solar flare, and your personality matrix was offline for like eight hours... I was scared to death. I thought for sure you were dead, or you'd come back blank or something. And I realized I didn't ever want to lose you. So I talked to Gearloose, and I wasn't expecting him to be so supportive, but he actually understood really well, he's like that with machines, so he soldered these together in one of your camera blind spots, and I'm rambling again, so I guess I'm asking-"

The wind was knocked out of Lena as the monitor shot forward, slamming into her. " **Yes! Yes! A thousand times yes!"**

Lena's breath caught in her throat. She couldn't believe she'd heard what she thought she'd heard. "A... are you sure?"

The monitor nodded. " **Of course I'm sure, you magnificent dummy! I love you!!!"**

Tears began to leak from Lena's eyes, floating away around her head. "I love you too, Webby." She wrapped her arms around the edges of the monitor, and put her forehead to the screen, as she had a thousand times before.

This time, she was sure she could feel a warmth that had never been there before, pressing back.

**"Y'know, it's amazing."**

Without removing her forehead, Lena asked "What is?"

" **I'm basically omniscient on this station. I can hear Captain Donald's knees creak. I can feel every hum and vibration in every wall. I see almost everything, and even in my blind spots, my audio sensors pick up what I miss. And still, I somehow didn't see this."**

Lena chuckled. She kissed the monitor, long and soft. "There's no place I'd rather be than floating in this tin can far beyond the world. And if they ever make me leave, I'll steal your CPU and we'll go on the run together, or I'll build you a robot body-"

**"Or I'll research a way to upload your consciousness into my mainframe."**

Lena nodded. "That might be cool. I can't begin to imagine what it's like to be intangible. It'd be cool, able to just instantly go anywhere, like a shadow."

Webby chuckled electronically. " **Believe me, it's not all it's cracked up to be."**

Lena smiled. "One day, Webby, I'm gonna take you dancing. You have my word."

Webby's screen suddenly flashed with an enormous exclamation point. " **Oh! I almost forgot! I have a surprise for you too!"**

Lena leaned back. "Lay it on me!"

**"Hang on a sec!"**

The monitor went black. A second later, a small tablet slid out of the bottom. Lena snagged it in her hands, eyebrows raised.

The tablet's screen suddenly lit up, a bright familiar pink. Out of the tinny speaker, Webby's voice said " **Ta-dah!"**

Lena's eyes widened. "Woah! How did you do that?!"

**"I asked Dr. Gearloose! I guess he was helping both of us out at the same time. Now you have a tiny version of me to carry around when you want!"**

**"** And this won't mess with the ship functions?"

**"Nope! Auto-run, remember? And when we're done, all you have to do is plug this thing back in!"**

Lena smiled, a broad, ecstatic grin. "Y'know, with this in mind... hang tight a moment, Webs."

Kicking off the wall, Lena whooshed the two of them over to her personal computer. "Compy: Play Dance Date Playlist."

A funky, synthesized beat began to play through the computer's speakers. Lena began to nod her head along.

**"Is that classical?"**

Lena grinned. "Madame, may I have this dance?"

The heart that appeared on screen was all the answer she needed.

As she twirled the two of them into the air, free-floating lava lamp illuminating their room in a vessel light-years from any civilization, Lena De Spell and W3B1 both knew, in their heart and CPU, that neither of them had ever been happier in their lives.

_I wanna rock with you_

_(All night)_

_Dance you into day_

_(Sun light)_

_I wanna rock with you_

_(All night)_

_We're gonna rock the night away..._

**Author's Note:**

> I spent five minutes trying to embed the Youtube link to the NSP cover of that song. Coding hates me. 
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8449ZUh5Ois
> 
> I feel that Gyro would be very sympathetic to a situation like this. The man clearly has a better understanding of machines than people.
> 
> I was looking forward to this prompt all week, and was very excited to write this. I hope you enjoyed!


End file.
